This transfer bonus hits different

Good morning from Manado — a city famous for its cuisine, which includes such delicacies as dog and cat meat… which I definitely did not try.

Seriously. I didn’t try either of those.

Speaking of delicious things (not that I would know), here are some delicious travel tips for you:

• ✈️ 30% transfer bonus to Qatar Airways

• 🏨 Buy points with a 100% bonus

• 💳 Credit Card Showdown

✈️ 30% transfer bonus to Qatar Airways

As you have seen over the last week, we’re in full transfer bonus season right now.

And there’s one big-boy bonus that we haven’t talked about yet. But it might be the best one of them all!

I’m talking about the 30% bonus from ThankYou points to Qatar Airways.

Now, if you go into your ThankYou points account, you won’t see any transfer bonus advertised.

So you might be thinking:

And my response would be,

But after that tense back and forth, I’d also tell you that this transfer bonus is actually offered from the Qatar side of things, not the bank side of things (read more about how it works on Qatar’s dedicated page here).

So basically, once you transfer the ThankYou points, Qatar will add 30% more Avios to your account by June 30 (but likely much sooner than that).

This is an especially good opportunity because you can freely transfer Avios between multiple airlines, so this is effectively a 30% bonus to Qatar, British Airways, Finnair, Aer Lingus, and Iberia.

Check out this newsletter for more details on how these airline transfers work. But for now, let’s look at some sweet-ass redemptions. *maniacally rubs hands together*

For starters, you can book the world’s best business class, Qatar Airways’ Qsuites, with Avios.

Qsuites feels more like first class than business class, and you can read all about how to book that in this newsletter.

But there are many other great redemptions, including domestic flights on American Airlines.

For example, you can book this flight from Miami (MIA) to New York (LGA) for just 13,000 Qatar Avios:

With the transfer bonus, you only need to shell out 10,000 ThankYou points, which is a pretty good deal.

If you’re a fancypants and want to get some luxury from your points, you can also fly in business class from the U.S. to Madrid (MAD) for just 34,000 Iberia Avios:

With the bonus, that’s just 26,000 ThankYou points to fly across the ocean in a lie-flat seat.

And if you don’t live on the East Coast but are still looking for a STEAL of a deal to get to Europe, you can fly from Nashville (BNA) on Aer Lingus’ new route to Dublin (DUB) for just 13,000 Avios:

With this bonus, that’s just 10,000 ThankYou points each way…

So here’s the bottom line:

This transfer bonus is sick (in a good way). If you have a stash of ThankYou points and have any domestic or international travel coming up, this is a great way to book more trips with fewer points.

The offer is only good through May 31, so you’ll want to hop on this sooner rather than later.

🏨 Buy points with a 100% bonus

I just booked a crazy trip that I’m leaving for in a couple of days. It’ll take me to five new countries, some of which are pretty remote.

And the program that saved my butt is IHG — the only hotel chain with properties in some of these places.

As a result, I kinda burned my entire stash of IHG points… 😬

Which is why I openly rejoiced when I saw that they just brought back their deal to buy points with a 100% bonus.

Here’s why this is so great…

With this 100% bonus, you can buy IHG points for half a penny ($0.005 each). Much of the time (though not all of the time), you can pretty easily get significantly more value for these points.

So you can effectively buy IHG stays for a fraction of the normal cash rate.

Let me give you some examples…

Last week, I spent four nights at this hotel in Bali, which costs $135 per night:

But because I have the IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card (which gives me every fourth night free when using IHG points), I booked it for just 14,500 points per night.

If I paid cash, it would’ve cost me $540 for the four-night stay.

But since you can buy IHG points so cheaply with a sale like this, you could book the same four-night stay by simply buying 58,000 IHG points for $290 all in.

Buying points strategically — especially paired with the fourth-night-free perk — is one of the easiest ways to save serious money on hotel stays.

If you’re traveling to more expensive destinations like Europe, this combo can really come in handy…

Check out this hotel in Helsinki, which can cost anywhere from $150-$200 per night in the summer:

Instead, you could use the fourth-night free perk and book the same property for less than 12,000 IHG points per night, costing you a grand total of $260 in points instead of the $764 cash rate.

So here’s the bottom line:

I personally love buying IHG points at this rate — because I know they’ll come in handy and save me a boatload of money on a regular basis.

If you have a trip coming up, I recommend comparing cash rates at IHG with points rates using this bonus.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed with all the premium credit cards out there.

Welcome offers, annual fees, travel credits, lounge access, elite status, the ability to summon airline food with your mind (maybe one day, right?)… It’s all a bit tough to keep track of.

In this week’s YouTube video, Brendan puts two heavy-hitting cards head to head so you can figure out which one’s worth it.

That’s all for today, my friends! I hope you enjoyed today’s content with a good airline deal, solid hotel hack, and credit card comparison.

See you tomorrow for more fun.

Cheers,

1.4748° N, 124.8421° E